The present invention relates to the art of multislice, magnetic resonance imaging. It finds particular application in conjunction with obtaining intersecting multislice two dimensional orthogonal, medical diagnostic images and will be described with particular reference thereto. It is to be appreciated, however, that the invention is also applicable to quality assurance and other types of magnetic resonance imaging, to acquiring three dimensional intersecting images, and the like.
In the past, multislice orthogonal images have been collected by changing the slice select, phase encode, and read gradients for each magnetic resonance echo. However, the dipoles which were in two or more of the slices were subject to the RF pulse for both slices which saturated the slice intersection. The resultant images had saturation bands, normally black, along the area in which that image slice intersected one or more of the other image planes or slices.
One technique for eliminating the saturation bands was to select slices which intersected outside of the region of interest. This enabled two or more non-parallel slices to be imaged concurrently. However, the requirement that the slices intersect outside of the region of interest greatly limited the planes which were able to be selected.
Another drawback of these prior art techniques was that all images must have the same field of view and slice thickness.
The present invention provides a new and improved multislice, multiangle imaging technique without the saturation artifacts and other drawbacks set forth above.